Those Anti-Vax posts or ads that you see on Facebook might be gone sooner than you think. Why? That is because Facebook has started doing actions to remove misleading materials related to Anti-Vaccines. A few were already sampled by their countermeasures like the 3,500 Facebook pages, accounts, and groups that have already been removed for delving on such controversial topic.
There is no hard evidence to prove if those "Anti-Vax" statements are true, but it still spread like wildfire in social media. This is alarming since such actions can endanger the health of many people. Facebook shared the same sentiment and decided to lend a helping hand in combating those contents by implementing changes in its platform. Here are those changes:
1. For groups or pages that posts misleading information regarding vaccines, their rankings will be decreased in News Feed and Search. They will also not appear in suggestions when searching.
2. Ads about vaccine controversies and other related topics will be rejected. If they continue to promote that kind of materials, their ad account will be shut down.
3. Misleading materials related to vaccines will not be shown in Instagram Explore or hashtag pages.
4. Instead of showing misinformative materials, they will be seeking ways to spread the right information instead.
These actions, aggressive as they may seem, are limited compared to Pinterest's deletion of Anti-Vax contents that it detects. Still, this is a huge step for Facebook. Before, they stood by the mentality that they should let the platform run by itself without much help from them, but now, they are willing to grab the reins and steer the issue on the right path. It also shows that they care about social media literacy.
Overall, it is a good thing that social media platforms are doing actions to filter out this kind of contents. Still, at the end of the day, it is our responsibility to investigate first before sharing or liking posts.
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